Guy Next Door
by moonlight-shimmer
Summary: Tai's hair is its own phenomenon, but what about his bed hair? Mimi finds that even more interesting... Neighbour AU!
Hello you wonderful people :)

I wanna say thank you so much for your feedback on Burn! It's so wonderful getting notifications and reading all your lovely messages. It inspired me to come back with another little oneshot! It's based on a prompt I found over on Tumblr. In this AU, Tai and Mimi are neighbours, and this could serve as a possible teaser for something longer I might tackle (there are a lot of great neighbour AU prompts out there)… :D I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think. x

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Mimi Tachikawa functioned best when she got up at 6:30 in the morning.

She loved to have breakfast, go for a quick run, shower, do her hair and makeup and tick the first few tasks off her list before she left for work at 8 o'clock. She'd always been an early riser, even on weekends. This morning, she woke up at 7 despite it being a Saturday, so she had already done quite a few things considering it was her day off.

Mimi was a perfectionist and she loved being a few steps ahead of her peers. Being up early on a Saturday morning when most people were enjoying a lie-in gave her a feeling of grim satisfaction, and she smiled to herself as she entered her apartment building, feeling like coming first in a race (there wasn't even a race, but _if_ there was, she would come first, and that was the important point).

She carried her shopping bags over to the lift and pressed the button for the sixth floor, humming to herself and thinking about doing some yoga on her balcony later because the weather was really nice. The elevator doors slid open with a satisfying little 'ping' and she stepped out on the plush carpet of her floor.

The young woman was met with a familiar sight as the door to the flat next to hers opened: Tai Yagami stepped outside to pick up the newspaper from his doormat (a task she had completed _hours_ ago), and Mimi wasn't surprised to see that he was still in his pyjamas, indicating that he had only gotten up a short time ago. He had a coffee mug in one hand, further confirming her assumption, and his hair… it was an absolute _mess_.

Not that it ever wasn't: if there was a real life version of the James Potter hair, it was this. It was brown and unruly, but in a purposeful way. Even though it was messy, she knew that he styled it that way. It wasn't that it was scruffy or unkempt; it was just a very unique, stylish kind of dishevelled that worked quite well for his handsome, somewhat impish features.

Now, however, it was a different kind of mess. It was bed hair.

Sexy, hot, suggestive bed hair.

She shook her head at her own thoughts, but she couldn't help but feel herself blush. It wasn't even that it looked totally different from his usual hair; it was more like… another kind of chaos. It was unintended and unintentional and – intimate. Paired with the casual t-shirt and boxers that he was wearing, he was the classic guy next door.

 _Good lord_ , Mimi thought, annoyed at this idea.

"Good morning, princess," he greeted her, a grin on his lips. "What are you doing up at this ungodly hour?"

"It's 10 am," she deadpanned, smirking back.

"Exactly."

"Some people don't waste their mornings in bed," the brunette woman shrugged with an air of dignity.

He leaned against his door frame languidly, the newspaper now stuck between his arm and ribs, and Mimi tried not to notice how the muscles in his upper arm flexed.

"The best mornings are wasted in bed," Tai implied, taking a sip from his coffee. He nodded at her bags. "What's that then?"

"My shopping for the week," she replied, glad to have something to say because he was reeeeeally handsome. _Stupid bed hair_. "And what have you been up to?"

He raised his eyebrow at her. "Do I look like I've done anything today besides having breakfast?"

"No, which is exactly why I asked," she grinned, poking her tongue out at him.

Tai shook his head at her, but there was no trace of annoyance on his face, just a hint of a smile. He pushed himself away from the doorframe, peeking into her shopping bags curiously. She found herself hiding her purchases from him playfully and was so baffled by herself for a moment – _why_ was she flirting back, for Christ's sake?! – that she almost missed what he was saying.

"- so Kari's coming round for lunch later, do you wanna join us?"

She regained her composure quickly. "Yes, sounds good," she agreed. "Only if you're dressed appropriately by then, though."

She was shocked when he threw her a smug look before he turned and went back into his apartment. "You're not fooling me, Mimi. I saw you check out my bed hair earlier."

Mimi was so flustered that she just gaped at his back for a few moments, and when he turned to close the door, waving at her with the newspaper he had picked up earlier, she started to splutter incoherently. "Yeah – right – that's just, really, I mean, as if I would ever –"

The door was shut into her face. Dumbfounded, the young woman starred at it for a second before blushing furiously and turning to stomp into her own apartment.

 _Stupid, stupid bed hair!_


End file.
